Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Eska's Appendix N

To show you how I'm imagining Eska, I'm going to share with you the inspirationl sources that sparked this whole thing.

Mad Max: Fury Road. I had wanted to see it, but I rarely go to the movies. I usually catch them later and watch at home. My wife wasn't interested in seeing it, so I went and saw it, alone... I had forgotten how fond I was of the Mad Max world. Things have gone to hell, and we have no idea how it got that way. Different roving bands and petty warlords all have a "unique look".

Building on unique look, you can't help but love 1979's The Warriors. One of my all time favorites movies.

That, but turned up to 11.

A healthy dose of Thundarr the Barbarian, He-Man and Blackstarr.

All that got thoughts swirling in my head, and I binge-read some Hill Cantons and other stuff about D&D's implied world.

Jurassic World has me replacing all the standard Earth beasts with dinosaurs, giant lizards, giant insects, monstrosities, and more. Who doesn't want to ride around on a giant wasp, or an axebeak instead of horses?

“Outside Paris the breakdown of authority was reaching catastrophe. Its catalyst was the brigandage of military companies spawned by the warfare of the last fifteen years. There were the Free Companies who write “sorrow on the bosom of the earth” and were to become the torment of the age. Composed of English, Welsh, and Gascons released after [the Battle of] Poitiers, as soldiers customarily were to avoid further payment...

Along with German mercenaries and Hainault adventurers, they gathered in groups of 20-50 around a captain...In the year after the truce they swelled, merged, organized, spread, and operated with ever more license. Seizing a castle, they would use it as a stronghold from which to exact tribute from every traveler and raid the countryside.

They imposed ransoms on prosperous villages and burned the poor ones, robbed abbeys and monasteries of their stores and valuables, pillaged peasants' barns...As the addiction took hold, they wantonly burned harvests and farm equipment and cut down trees and vines, destroying what they lived by, in actions which seem inexplicable except as a fever of the time or an exaggeration of the chroniclers.”

-Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror

"Life was squalid in the lofty but crowded fortifications atop isolated hills; visits from bandits and robbers outnumbered those from merchants and churchmen".